In this, the careening traincar that finally brought a halt to the Universal Monsters movies, both Dracula (John Carradine) and the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney, Jr.) show up more or less simultaneously at the doorstep of Dr. Edelman (Onslow Stevens), seeking treatment for their monstrous maladies. Edelman, of course, agrees to treat them, but soon becomes entranced with the Frankensteinian God-complex that befalls everyone who encounters the original Frankenstein's Monster. Oh, didn't I mention, that in the course of treating the Wolf Man, Edelman encounters the Monster, buried in a cave following his assumed death-by-quicksand in House of Frankenstein? And as with that film, each monster's storyline is given about equal short shrift. The real draw to this movie, in my apparently undersexed opinion, is the sexy hunchback nurse Nina (Jane Adams), who has a simply adorable little lisp and a hunchback! It's about time the hunchback community got its Lynda Carter! Um, well, as it turns out, Dracula is merely out to seduce the other (non-hunchback) nurse, and has entered rehab as a ruse … why he didn't just burst in and bite the bitch goes unexplained. For some reason, though, Dracula seems absolutely intent on keeping up the façade, and even when he's about to fulfill his bloody goal, he agrees to submit to one of Edelman's treatments. Brain transplants and blood transfusions being "out" by 1945, Edelman's therapy consists of being salved with mold from the cave in which the Monster was found. Lost? So were the filmmakers. Inevitably, the surgery goes wrong, killing Dracula rather abruptly and turning Edelman into a sort of hybrid Dracula-Wolf Man. And sadly, the hunchback nurse never gets her cure, instead falling victim to one of Edelman's rages. I shall have to redress this unfortunate turn of events in my Sidney Sheldon-esque screenplay, The Hunchback Nurse (starring Lynda Carter). As with all of these movies, all hell breaks loose, and the townspeople (including the one egregiously gay spokesperson) are forced to torch the place. The final showdown occurs after the main characters have been either cured or killed, so the end consists only of Frankenstein's Monster (Glenn Strange, this time around) batting his hands around at the flames which threaten to engulf him. After this delightfully bad installment, Universal was forced to admit that their Monsters had come to evoke laughter instead of screams, and so subsequent appearances would be limited to Abbott & Costello movies. This isn't surprising; the fact that it took the studio so many years (and films) to realize the truth is surprising. Also surprising: I now have a hunchback-nurse fetish.
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